Wednesday, December 9, 2015

This Wednesday's Post Is Printed On 100% Post-Consumer Waste Paper Stock (Assuming You Have Printed It Out On 100% Post-Consumer Waste Paper Stock)

Some emails are spam. Other emails are important. And then once in a very great awhile comes a life-changing email that totally blows your mind, like the one I just received from someone who's "invented a new gear shifting system:"

As soon as I heard the portentous music and that cutting-edge test bike entered the frame, I knew I was bearing witness to greatness:

Behold...Wavetrans:

Which is not a spinoff of the critically-acclaimed sitcom starring Jeffrey Tambor.

So what is it?

Well, it's...something:

Something that appears to have been made from a Target bike and a repurposed Nintendo Game Boy:

If you're smelling something right now, that's the sound of the people at Shimano soiling their pants in fear.

Police confirmed that shortly after 4 p.m., officers pursued a stolen van whose occupants were allegedly trying to break into a parking meter on Schroeder Street from North Broadway to Warburton, just south of Odell Avenue and the Greystone train station. The chase ended when the van, traveling northbound, struck a sedan traveling southbound.

(Yes, according to the journalistic standards of this particular newspaper, when teenagers who are too young to drive kill someone with a stolen van while fleeing police it's still an "accident.")

That's a rather click-baity headline for the Times. I realize we don't have all the facts on this one, but when you're DRIVING THE WRONG WAY ON THE FREAKING PARKWAY, isn't it at least fair to say you're armed with a car?

When they spotted the Nissan again, it was coming back toward them, going against traffic and heading southbound on the northbound side of the roadway, the officials said. It passed them, they said, then crashed into a median and three other vehicles a short distance away.

By the way, the fun started a mere bidon's throw from my home:

The police chase began shortly before noon, when two officers from the 50th Precinct in the Bronx, on patrol in a marked car, saw a gray 2009 Nissan Z driving erratically and began to follow it. The officers tried to pull the car over at 242nd Street and Broadway; instead it was driven off at high speed, officials said. The officers followed the car but lost sight of it on the parkway, just over the border in Westchester County.

He must have been driving beyond erratically if the police actually bothered to follow him, because erratic driving is business as usual at that intersection, where motorists do their best to murder pedestrians as they wait for buses or attempt to cross Broadway and reach Van Cortlandt Park on the other side. (Most large New York City parks are surrounded by streets that are nearly impossible to cross, the thinking being that you'll appreciate them more if you need to risk death in order to access them.)

Anyway, after careful deliberation I chose the latter route:

The appearance of the thin ice rescue ladders in the park means winter is coming, but you wouldn't know it from the unseasonably warm temperatures we've been experiencing. (Global warming, we're all gonna die, yadda yadda and so forth.)

After using the ladder to climb a tree and throw things at passing runners for awhile, I got back on my bike and continued north, and it wasn't long before I saw this:

After wrecking his car on the parkway the driver fled on foot, so maybe the smashed fence and tire tracks are from the police driving onto the bike path in pursuit:

Either way, a short while later I came upon what I'm assuming is the scene of the fatal shooting:

Riding through the scene of an ongoing investigation didn't seem like it would go very well for me, and so I backtracked a bit and took what turned out to be an enjoyable little detour:

I even got to check in with what appears to be the abode of one Mr. or Mrs. "Hot Cheeks:"

Companies that have long touted press-fit systems as desirable features would face an even bigger hurdle by switching to T47: the tacit admission that the designs they’d previously claimed as superior are no longer so.

I take great pleasure in reading about the hole the Fred-biking industry has dug for itself with these stupid bottom brackets, and the bike reviewers who are finally getting around to admitting that they suck have nobody to blame but themselves.

91 comments:

89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal (a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.

I would like to point out that there are a few bike companies who never drank the press fit BB Kool-Aid. I only know or care about MTB, so Santa Cruz is the only mainstream brand that I know of for sure. In any case, SC has my loyalty for trusting their engineers who surely recognized from the outset that press-fit was nothing more than marketing driven garbage.

All of this nations problems originate in Canada. Their tar sands have moved like the blob across the NSA Border and have submerged all of our border states. If only Donald's, make that The Donald's, Great Wall of NSA had been built we would have been saved.

Dear Mr. WaveTrans - I already have a revolutionary shifting system that allows me to shift with the press of a button. It's called the Shimano SIS system. It's a reliable mechanical system that has been standard for close to 20 years. Crampy and SRAM make their own versions. You might want to check them out.

While I certainly wouldn't advocate more bottom brackets 'standards,' my desire for other features (cantilever brakes, top tube cable routing, etc led me to a Giant TCX with BB386 and... with Campy cups + Centaur crank (costs less than your Ultegra) it's dead silent. You might recall, by comparison, when the Prospect Park peleton had a goodly # of Dura Ace bottom brackets and fucking Look pedals, what a goddamn ticking, screeching cacaophony that was! Intelligent riders 'downgraded' to Ultegra + ditched Look for Time but we know not bike racers by definition ain't too bright. As for my ITALIAN threaded bottom bracket... it was easy to remove, I'll say that!

"Speaking of fear" Two people were shot to death north of here Monday. But today is Wednesday and I haven't heard of any gunfire "incidents" for 24 whole hours now. That might be some kind of record in the USG (United States of Gunfire). Two dead doesn't even count as a "mass shooting" (four or more are needed), so does that mean it's not even considered to be "gun violence"? And what kind of idiot uses a gun anyway when there are no shortages of SUV's?

But what happens when it's time to service the BB386? The press-fit bottom bracket on my Ritte is also quiet but it's a real hassle when you want to change the bottom bracket. With a good old-fashioned threaded shell and a Hollowtech II or similar bottom bracket it's like a ten minute operation.

On account of my retrogrouchiness, most of my bikes have square pegs in the round hole, but I have to admit that the couple with the Hollowtech gear are definitely more convenient/ easy to service/swap. I won't get a bike with a press fit bb, those things are creaky Fuck-Os.

If you put blue loctite on all the PF BB components it will last a lot longer before the clicking starts. I just got 3 years out of this run AND NOW IT'S CLICKING AND DRIVING ME INSANE.....I know I know....it's not a drive it's a putt.

My new Fitwell DeGroot (worst bike name ever?) has a lovely Shimano 5700 threaded BB. Of course, it's an aluminum bike no serious roadie would ever consider, which further endears it to me. It has helped me get over my purloined Marin Venezia (even though it had a *much* more poetic name).

By the way, it does...fit well. Not a trivial thing for a 6'4" guy with most of that height in the legs.

That Wavy Trans thingy reminds me of some sort of crazy shifting system that some idiot tried to sell 25 years ago. I can't remember what it was called, but it was cable operated. As for press fit bottom brackets, they prove that one's born every minute. Give me a screwed in bottom bracket and pressed in headset cups, and I'll be happy.

Not sure what difference it makes, but a guy named Royce Husted invented and patented the radial gear in the 1980's. After failing to sell it to a established bike manufacturer, he started the Yankee Bike company to make bikes and components. Nordictrack brought Yankee, sohortly before it (Nordictrack) went bankrupt.

Mark this day, because it's a first. CJ posted something completely reasonable, interesting, and topical. Moreover, it didn't include any references to sex, boner stems, the proper number of headset spaces, or any of the other stupid stream of consciousness shit that usually characterizes a CJ post. I could learn to like this version of CJ.

If I were going to try an alternative bicycle transmission it would be a Pinion gearbox, which was invented by a couple of Porsche engineers. Combined with a Gates belt drive and installed on a rugged titanium frame, it looks like it would be just the thing on which to navigate the wilds of Westchester. http://www.hilite-bikes.com/product/titan/pinion-p1-18-trekking-bike/

The usual pet peeve: WaveTrans video takes 1 minute 20 seconds to get to the fucking point. No one cares about your shit-ass marketing fluff! Though of course, eliminating marketing fluff would lead to people selling things on their merits, and those products with no merits wouldn't even be advertised -- maybe even dropping out of the market entirely! We can't have that! Won't somebody think of the meritless products?!!

I've always wanted small electric motors inside my crankset pushing apart huge gaps in the chainring, which is not really a chainring anymore.Either that or square chainrings to go along with my square taper bottom brackets.

The terrorists in England used knives instead of guns, far less of a body count. Is this lack of carnage because guns are harder to own in Great Britain? Hmmmm... I guess one could say, they did use cutting edge technology though.

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!